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Category Archives: Accountability
“Government accused of covering up schools cuts with misleading figures”
“The government has been accused of attempting to cover up school budget cuts in England, after the UK’s statistics watchdog said it would investigate ministers’ use of spending figures that included private school fees to fend off criticism.
The UK Statistics Authority said it had received complaints about a recent claim, made by the Department for Education and the schools standards minister, Nick Gibb, that the UK’s spending on education was the third highest in the world.
But the claim, based on OECD figures, was revealed by the BBC to include university student tuition loans as well as the fees paid by private school pupils, which fall outside the DfE’s budget.
The department also faces scrutiny over its continued use of a claim that there are 1.9 million more children in schools rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding than at the time of the 2010 election.
“The UK Statistics Authority and the Office for Statistics Regulation are investigating the concerns raised, and will publish their findings shortly,” a spokesperson for the regulator said.
Last Friday saw a protest by more than 2,000 headteachers over school funding cuts in England. In response, the DfE defended its record, and included the statement: “The OECD has recently confirmed that the UK is the third highest spender on education in the world, spending more per pupil than countries including Germany, Australia and Japan.”
Gibb later repeated the same claim during an interview on the BBC, and the DfE published the statement in a blog on its website.
But the OECD data was comparing education spending as a percentage of national output, and included government spending in England and elsewhere along with university tuition loans for students as well as fees paid by pupils at private schools.
The OECD figures also include government spending on education in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which in most cases is devolved to national assemblies in those countries and is not counted within the DfE’s budget.
Jules White, the headteacher of a secondary school in West Sussex who helped organise last Friday’s protest, said the DfE was attempting to cover up the “savage cuts that have been made to school budgets” .
“At every stage, the government and Department for Education has refused to acknowledge an overwhelming independent body of evidence which clearly confirms that the cuts have gone too far,” White said.
“Ministers have now been caught out and we appeal to them to stop the pattern of using dreadfully misleading information which is unfair to educational professionals and most crucially to parents and pupils.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that funding per pupil in England fell by 8% between 2010 and 2018, with 66,000 more children in state schools this year than the year before but with 5,000 fewer teachers. …”
6th richest country in the world: “Fuel bills and council tax pushing people into debt the fastest – charity warns “concerning” bill rises are ruining lives”
“A debt help charity is seeing growing numbers of people falling behind with fuel bills and a resurgence in the proportion of clients with high-cost credit such as payday loans.
StepChange Debt Charity said the proportion of clients in arrears with council tax is also “stubbornly high”.
In the first half of 2018, 13.1% of all new clients were behind on a gas or electricity bill compared with 11.4% in the first half of 2017.
The charity said the increase coincides with some companies having already raised prices this year.
While some customers could potentially reduce their bills by switching, those facing financial difficulty may be nervous of the complexity of price tariffs and wary of being caught out and put in an even worse financial position, StepChange said.
It wants more utility providers to establish flexible repayment schemes, as well as sharing effective good practice on working with people who are struggling to pay to minimise their costs. …”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/fuel-bills-council-tax-pushing-13355881
Telegraph pays Boris Johnson £275,000 a year for 10 hours work per month
“Boris Johnson was re-employed by the Daily Telegraph on a salary of £275,000 a year for his weekly column, it has been revealed.
“The Conservative MP and potential leadership candidate had to give up his newspaper job when he became foreign secretary in 2016, forfeiting the substantial second income.
However, the parliamentary register of members’ interests shows he was immediately rehired on the same rate after resigning this summer, with no attempt made by the Daily Telegraph – which has experienced years of job cuts and falling profits – to push down his salary.
The former foreign secretary said he spends 10 hours a month writing his 1,100 word column, equivalent to a pay rate of £2,291/hour – or around £4.80 a word.”
Very stupid Tory Minister says councils are not getting cuts just more flexible ways to earn income!!”
Owl says: As John Crace (Guardian) puts it – top Tories these days seem to be fighting over their only brain cell!
“Treasury minister Liz Truss has been branded “innumerate or inept” after falsely claiming that local councils are not facing cuts.
Philip Hammond’s deputy insisted the government was simply giving town halls more “flexibility” to raise money themselves, rather than slashing their funds.
“We are not making cuts to local authorities,” Ms Truss told BBC Newsnight.
In fact, the Local Government Association highlighted this week that funding will be reduced by 36 per cent next year, the largest annual deduction in almost a decade.
And the organisation’s Conservative leader has warned that more councils will go bust unless ministers “address the funding crisis”.
Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s local government spokesman, condemned Ms Truss’s comments, saying: “This shows she’s either totally innumerate or completely inept.
“Councils of all political persuasions are edging towards the financial cliff edge, and it’s a Tory Council, Northamptonshire, that’s the first to go bump on their watch, with others not far behind. …”
New Health Secretary says no more community hospitals will be closed because they are vital to NHS!
Owl says: he makes no mention of what will happen to those already closed and up for sale. This also raises major inequality-of-care issues for the eastern side of East Devon (where all community beds have been cut) and western East Devon where the only community beds are in Sidmouth and Exmouth.
“The Health Secretary has promised to end the closure of community hospitals to ensure patients can be treated near their homes.
Matt Hancock said it was time to end the era of moving medical departments to large regional hospitals while smaller ones were closed.
He wants more patients to be cared for locally, particularly for routine procedures such as scans, physiotherapy and treatment for minor injuries.
Set up 150 years ago as cottage hospitals with just a few beds, Britain now has around 500 community hospitals that provide a broad range of services for local patients, including end-of-life care, rehabilitation for the elderly, scans, X-rays and minor injury units.
But NHS cuts mean dozens are facing closure across the country, including in Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Cumbria, Leicestershire, Devon and Dorset.
Local health officials have been told to make savings and improve care, and many argue that patients can be treated more safely and cheaply in larger hospitals, even if they have further to travel.
But Mr Hancock believes that although patients should be prepared to go further afield for major operations such as heart bypass surgery, other procedures should be offered closer to home. …”
Greendale exploits planning loopholes yet again
PRESS RELEASE:
“FWS Carter and Sons were successful in obtaining planning permission for 2 further agricultural buildings at Hogsbrook Farm, next to their Business Park at Woodbury Salterton.
The 2 planning applications were debated at East Devon’s Planning meeting on Tuesday 2nd Oct at the Knowle Sidmouth. The 2 planning applications were17/2430/MFUL and 18/0920/FUL for large agricultural sheds at Hogsbrook Farm. They were both recommended for approval by the planning department.
Although the Planning Committee were reluctant to grant planning permission for these 2 buildings only 18 months after a planning inspector overturned the committee’s decision to refuse 2 similar units being changed from agricultural use to industrial, because it was claimed they were redundant for agricultural and their remaining cattle sheds a facilities were more than adequate for their farming needs for the foreseeable future.
Yet within a short space of time after the previous units were converted to Industrial use the company applied for these 2 further agricultural buildings due to the alleged expansion to their farm business.
It was pointed out that there have now been many similar applications at Greendale and Hogsbrook Farm where agricultural building have changed to industrial or business use due to the company claiming that they were no longer needed for their agriculture needs.
Committee members were concerned that although it seemed obvious that FWS Carter and Sons are “cynically abusing” the planning system and conditions attached to previous applications which had tried to control these changes, that have by default allowed the Business Park to expand considerably and in an uncontrolled manner.
The planning officer stated that the Government and East Devon planning regulations could unfortunately not prevent these applications being approved, as the applicant had submitted an agricultural justification statement, and the applications complied with all the legal requirements, but he agreed to recommend a legal clause that should prevent the applicant from converting these further 2 units to industrial or business use in the future.
District Councillor Geoff Jung a planning committee member and the local Councillor for Raleigh Ward which includes Woodbury Salterton said after the meeting.
“There are now more than a dozen massive Industrial units at Greendale and Hogsbrook Farm which were all retrospectively changed in use and later granted permission for industrial use.”
“I totally support encouraging businesses to expand and I totally support farmers to expand and diversify and I am all for the welfare of the animals.”
“But we are also the custodians of our countryside which needs protection from uncontrolled development.”
“It very disappointing to the local community that a local developer and landowner, FWS Carter and Sons, have been successful in working the planning system.”
“I do hope the legal draft to be added the planning permission will now prevent further applications of this nature”
A few newspaper headlines from the Tory Party conference
An alternative view of the conference!
MP’s ‘horror’ at getting £4.2bn to digitise NHS with no plan
(BBC News)
Conservative MP slams party conference ‘narrative’ as he cannot recall a single ‘real announcement’
(Sky News)
Outrage as Tory uni society picture shows one student with Hitler-style moustache while another sports ‘F*** the NHS’ T-shirt
(Daily Mirror)
Don’t Always Believe What Tory MPs Say On TV, Says Party Grandee
(Huffington Post)
Education Secretary Damian Hinds Could Face Probe From Statistics Watchdog Over Conference Speech
(Huffington Post)
Boris Johnson And Jeremy Hunt Described As ‘D*ckheads’ By Former Tory Treasury Minister Jim O’Neill
(Huffington Post)
“NHS faces £2.7bn cuts after government pension slip-up”
“The NHS will suffer £2.7bn in new cuts after the government miscalculated the pension costs of public sector workers, a new analysis from the House of Commons library has shown.
The government has offered to cover the NHS’s additional costs up until 2020, but the final two years of additional pension costs totalling £2.7bn until the next election will have to be covered by the public service.
This could have paid for the salaries of a total of 61,912 nurses, said the Labour Party, who released the research.
They say the government could have miscalculated pension costs for all public sector workers by as much as £4bn a year.
Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the treasury, Peter Dowd, said: “Billions of pounds are being quietly cut from our NHS due to a poisonous cocktail of disastrous economic mismanagement and spiteful behaviour.”
“These cuts are the equivalent of paying the salary of over 61,000 nurses a year. Nurses whom we desperately need after 8 years of crushing austerity in our NHS.”
Labour say the initial announcement was snuck out in a statement late last Thursday with no parliamentary scrutiny.
The Conservatives’ annual party conference is currently underway in Birmingham, and will publish its next budget on 29 October.
Dowd added: “The Chancellor must immediately own up and commit to meeting these extra costs, not just push them on to slashed and struggling public services.”
“All this just goes to show, you cannot trust the Tories with our NHS.”
This comes after the government pledged more than £145m for emergency care and 900 extra beds ahead of the winter earlier this month.
But experts have been critical, saying the funding won’t be nearly enough, especially if the UK is faced with the “extremely challenging conditions”.
General and acute bed occupancy was at a whopping 94.4% with an average of 20 trusts having over 99% occupancy each day.”
Beware council promises – an example from Teignbridge
“Plans for a new country park serving the 2,500 homes to be built on the edge of Exeter are being cut back, it has been claimed.
The 70-hectare park (173 acres) in the area of the new homes around the Devon Hotel is being dropped by Teignbridge District Council in favour of one that is much smaller, says local county councillor Alan Connett.
Cllr Connett says he has uncovered the council’s plan for a park less than two-thirds the size of the original plan, at 39 hectares (96 acres).
He said: “Teignbridge’s own Local Plan, which sets out how the district will develop over the next 20 years, promises a ‘ridge top park of approximately 70 hectares’. “However, we see yet again how the council promises the earth and then quietly changes the plan.”
In a confidential report going to Teignbridge Council’s Executive committee on Tuesday, October 2, Mr Connett said it was understood the ruling Conservative councillors would be asked to back a new, smaller countryside park for the South West of Exeter development.
Cllr Connett, a Liberal Democrat, said: “Teignbridge now wants to concentrate on a country park that is over a third smaller than it promised residents. “Much of the development at South West Exeter is, in fact, in the parish of Exminster, which will see an extra 2,000 houses within the community, and just 500 ‘over the border’ in Exeter.
“The ridge top park is seen as an essential part of the development not only to provide open space for the residents who will live in the new homes but also to take pressure off the Exe Estuary and reduce the number of visitors.
“This is another example of the planning system promising one thing but delivering less than that promise.
It was the council that put forward a country park of approximately 70 hectares but now, in a secret meeting not open to the Press or the public, and without any consultation, it plans to renege on that promise.
“This is why local people lose faith in the planning system and don’t believe councils when they say good quality community benefits will be gained from large scale housing developments.
“Of course, a park of 96 acres will still be a big space to walk dogs, enjoy picnics and family time together, but that is not the point. “The park will be part of the community for ever more, we hope, and it’s already being downsized.
“As Exeter and Teignbridge continue to grow in the years to come, future generations will come to regret that the Park was not the promised 70 hectares.
“Also, as a local councillor I am now gagged and prevented from saying more about what I have uncovered because the council has ensured all this is being discussed in private, in secret session.”
“Teignbridge says it is an ‘open and transparent’ council, but yet again we see it is anything but that. “It prefers to do its business and cut back on its promises in a private meeting which the public are not allowed to attend.”
A spokesman for Teignbridge Council said Teignbridge adopted its Local Plan in 2014 and at the time the Plan’s independent Inspector noted that the Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace allocation at South West Exeter was sufficient to address the impacts planned development, as well as possible needs in the future.
He said: “The same year, a masterplan for South West Exeter was publicly consulted on and adopted by the Council.
“It explained that 36 hectares of the 70 hectare allocation were needed to accommodate planned development and that the allocation of the larger area therefore provided longer term flexibility.
“The additional provision to the total of 70 hectares indicated was put in there to provide greater flexibility for the countryside park to expand in the future.
“In all cases the land areas being talked about are significantly larger than Dawlish countryside park.”
Cllr Humphrey Clemens, Teignbridge’s Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Housing and Planning, said: “In line with council procedure, Cllr Connett has had the opportunity to raise any questions in advance of the Executive and I welcome the opportunity to have an open discussion with him during the meeting.”
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/devon-country-park-shrinks-2062679
“Why The Hinkley Point C Power Station Is The Subject Of A Court Battle”
“A Cardiff court will play host to a group of activists on Tuesday, as they fight for an injunction to stop 300,000 tonnes of “nuclear mud” from a Somerset power station being disposed of just outside Cardiff.
The unusual dispute centres on the “Hinkley Point C” building site, where energy supplier EDF are currently in the process of constructing two new nuclear reactors.
In order to drill the six shafts needed for the reactors, EDF is clearing 300,000 tonnes of mud and sediment – and planning to dispose of it just off the Welsh coast, on the Cardiff Grounds sandbank.
The prospect of that amount of waste being ditched a mile and a half away hasn’t exactly excited locals or environmental campaigners, but there’s another factor causing added concern.
For decades, Hinkley Point has been a nuclear power hub, with its first station – “A” – operating for 35 years before closing in 2000. Hinkley Point B was opened in 1976 and is still functioning today.
The presence of these two plants has led to concerns over whether the mud there is radioactive and when the plans were announced, various online petitions calling for the Welsh Assembly to look into the matter were launched online, gathering a total of 100,000 signatures by mid-September.
Throughout the process, energy suppliers EDF have remained adamant that public safety is not at risk, with a spokesperson previously stating, on numerous occasions: “The mud is typical of sediment found anywhere in the Bristol Channel and no different to sediment already at the Cardiff Grounds site.”
Natural Resources Wales have backed them up too and say on their website that mud tested in a laboratory “did not have unacceptable levels of chemicals or radiological materials and was suitable for disposal at sea”.
But these statements have not satisfied campaigners – who count among their number a member of welsh band Super Furry Animals.
Keyboard player Cian Ciarán has become something of a spokesperson for the campaign and recently told the Guardian that he’s “involved as a Welshman and a concerned earthling”.
“English councils brace for biggest government cuts since 2010 despite ‘unprecedented’ budget pressures”
“Councils are facing the biggest cuts to government funding since 2010 despite unprecedented pressure and demand, which could risk “tipping many over the edge”, local authorities have warned.
Figures show that the revenue support grant – the main source of government funding for local services – will be cut by 36 per cent next year, marking the largest annual deduction in almost a decade.
It comes despite repeated warnings that continuing cuts to vital local authority provisions mean vulnerable people, such as the elderly, at-risk children and homeless people, are being left to “fend for themselves”.
An analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) reveals that, overall, councils will have suffered a 77 per cent decrease in the government funding between 2015/16 and next year, dropping from £9,927m in 2015-16 to £2,284m in 2019-20.
Almost half of all councils (168) will receive no support grant next year – marking a threefold rise on this year and a more than tenfold increase on 2017/18, the figures show.
The government claimed its funding settlement gave a real terms increase in resources for local government in 2018-19 and said new “business rate pilots” would mean councils retain £1.8bn.
But council leaders said this would not substitute for adequately funded services, and warned that they were increasingly unable to provide dignified care for the elderly and disabled, protect children and build much-needed homes.
Official figures published last week showed government spending on children at risk of neglect or abuse had been slashed by 26 per cent over the past five years, while spending on children’s centres dropped by 42 per cent.
Separate data shows that the number of older people who are not getting the care and support they need from local authorities has hit a record high, with one in seven now living with some level of unmet need – marking a 19 per cent increase since 2015.”
“Business rates: one John Lewis store will pay four times the tax of Amazon”
“John Lewis, the embattled retailer whose profits collapsed by 99% in the six months to July, will be charged £10.5m in business rates for its flagship Oxford Street shop from April, according to new figures — a 60% rise in three years.
A short walk away, Selfridges’ flagship shop also faces a 60% hike: its business rates bill will climb to £17.5m. That figure is almost four times the total UK corporation tax paid last year by the online retail giant Amazon: just £4.5m.
The looming threat to the high street will put pressure on the chancellor, Philip Hammond, to throw businesses a lifeline when he delivers his budget on October 29.
This weekend, Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: “These figures lay bare the shocking burden the business rates regime places on British retailers, who make up 5% of the economy and pay 25% of business rates — £7bn a year. The rates bill is leading to store closures, preventing the reinvention of our high streets, and is damaging communities the length and breadth of the UK.”
The BRC is lobbying for a two-year freeze in business rates until a revaluation in 2021, while the New West End Company, which represents businesses in London’s West End, is lobbying for a rates reduction of £5bn. This would be financed by a 1% tax on online businesses but would not apply to traditional retailers’ internet sales.
High street trading has been squeezed by online shopping, which now accounts for 18.2% of the market, with fewer stores surviving to shoulder the rates burden.
A phased four-year settlement in 2017 will bite hardest from April, with some stores facing huge increases. Burberry, which this month unveiled a new collection, faces a hike for its London headquarters of 186% compared with its rates in 2016-17.
In Manchester, Zara must pay £1.26m and Manchester City football club £2.4m, up from £1.7m in 2016-17.
Altus Group, the property adviser that researched the figures, found NHS hospitals will have to pay £386m and council-controlled state schools £957m.
Nickie Aiken, the Conservative leader of Westminster council, said: “Our taxes should reflect our way of life. I would ask the Treasury: do we want to continue the decline so that the only things left on the high street are charity shops and betting shops?”
Source: Sunday Times (pay wall)
May puts sticking plaster on homes crisis
“The government believes there is evidence that allowing foreign buyers to snap up homes while paying the same duty as British residents “is inflating house prices”. …”
Well, who would have guessed!
“Audit sector faces inquiry as minister points to deficiencies”
Interesting to note that a large number of people in East Devon have been pointing out deficiencies in internal and external audit foy YEARS!
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2015/01/15/a-question-for-the-swap-internal-auditor/
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2016/11/19/external-auditors-not-best-placed-to-review-local-plan-duh/
“The government has called for a comprehensive review of Britain’s auditing industry in what could herald huge changes to a sector dominated by the firms known as the big four.
Calls for reform have grown after the collapse of the construction giant Carillion and the former high street stalwart BHS revealed serious inadequacies in the auditing process.
The business secretary, Greg Clark, said it was “right to learn the lessons and apply them without delay” as he ordered the inquiry into competition within the industry where Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young and KPMG audit 98% of the UK’s largest listed companies.
“The collapse of Carillion exposed deficiencies in an audit process, where the market is dominated by just four large firms,” Clark said, in an interview with the Financial Times.
He added: “We know competition is one of the key drivers for maintaining and improving standards, so I have asked the Competition and Markets Authority to consider looking again at what can be done to improve the audit sector.”
Thousands of jobs were lost following Carillion’s collapse in January, with a subsequent parliamentary report finding that Deloitte – which received £10m to be the outsourcing company’s internal auditor – had been either “unable or unwilling” to identify failings in financial controls, or “too readily ignored them”.
Ernst & Young was paid £10.8m for “six months of failed turnaround advice”. Elsewhere, PwC was fined £10m by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) for signing off on the accounts of BHS, before its sale for £1. The retailer collapsed in 2016, prompting the loss of 11,000 jobs.
Frank Field, the chairman of the work and pensions committee, said poor business practices were “waved through by a cosy club of auditors, conflicted at every turn”.
The FRC has previously called for an inquiry into whether the big four should be broken up, with their audit divisions spun off. This year, Deloitte warned that such a measure could affect the UK’s standing as a global financial centre.
Labour welcomed the announcement, but claimed the Conservatives were “playing catch-up”. …”
“The Tories Have Accidentally Revealed The Personal Mobile Numbers Of Hundreds Of MPs And Journalists On Their Conference App”
These are the people charged with our Brexit it negotiations and keeping the UK safe!!!
“The Conservative party has accidentally allowed the personal mobile phone numbers of hundreds of MPs, journalists, and party members to be revealed to the public on its conference app.
A security flaw allowed anyone who downloaded the app to log in as any attendee to the party conference, which begins in Birmingham tomorrow, using only their email address. No password was required to view any attendee’s personal details, including their mobile phone number.
BuzzFeed News was able to access the personal mobile phone numbers of cabinet ministers, MPs, journalists, and Tory party members within seconds.
Users of the app are also able to change the privacy settings of other attendees using only their email address, allowing anyone else using the app to search their name and then view their mobile number.
An MP who had their personal phone number tweeted out told BuzzFeed News: “CCHQ genuinely can’t be trusted to do anything. This is a serious security breach and no laughing matter. Whoever is responsible needs to go.”
Labour MP Jon Trickett said: “How can we trust this Tory Government with our country’s security when they can’t even build a conference app that keeps the data of their members, MPs and others attending safe and secure?”
Journalist Dawn Foster reported being able to log in as Boris Johnson and then view his personal mobile number.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/the-tories-have-accidentally-revealed-the-personal-mobile
Hugo meets Exmouth’s Tristram – and praises the company he works for – incorporated in the Cayman Islands
Nice story about Swire meeting Tristram Harris from Exmouth:
“Tristram, from the Merchant Exmouth, was invited to the House of Commons to celebrate the 200th general manager appointment from Stonegate’s Pub Company’s pool of home-grown talent, having successfully completed the company’s award winning ‘Accelerator’ programme.”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/bar-to-boardroom-for-tristram-1-5713102
At least it would be nice if Stonegate Pub Company wasn’t incorporated in the Cayman Islands. And its directors were not all non-Devon based and with fingers in many, many pies and pints.
Developers (“Cranbrook Limited”) still seem to hold all the cards in the town
From Town Council website:
“For distribution – question: What is “Cranbrook Limited” referred to in the last line?
Town Council site:
“The Town Council has been advising previously that we have been chasing the Consortium to release householders from the rent charge deed and yesterday we received the following statement:
“The development partners, Persimmon Homes, Taylor Wimpey and Hallam are continuing to work with their agents to conclude the Estate Rent Charge audit process and Deed of Release on final payment of balances due from each household. Please bear with us as we complete these tasks. We will continue to liaise with the Town Council on this and update you further in due course.”
Whilst we are doing all we can to help progress this matter, the Town Council is not responsible for the development and distribution of the documentation which removes the rent charge deed from individual households – it is and remains the responsibility of Cranbrook Limited.
The Town Council will continue chasing this matter on a regular basis.”
The mysterious case of the missing speeding Health Secretary video!
“WHY DID ITV DELETE THE FILM OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE’S CAR SPEEDING THROUGH OTTERY HOSPITAL CAR PARK?
ITV’s short clip of Matt Hancock, Health Secretary’s ministerial blue-lighted car travelling at speed through Ottery Hospital’s car park, was deleted yesterday afternoon, less than 24 hours after it was posted.
Given that the video, which was in the process of going viral, must have dismayed both Mr Swire and Mr Hancock, my suspicions are directed firmly at these two.
I will be interested to hear from the two politicians whether they played a role in removing the embarrassing footage.
The tweet in question from political correspondent, Nick Smith, also confirmed that Mr Hancock’s black jaguar, using its security alert blue lights, appeared to be fleeing the apparently terrifying prospect of talking to me and around a dozen peaceable looking residents….
Here’s the video of the ministerial car speeding away after trying to shake us off…
For more detail see…
http://www.claire-wright.org/…/why_has_itv_deleted_the_film…
More Cranbrook Taylor Wimpey woes
“An NHS worker living in Cranbrook has spoke of her shock at finding her garden path replaced with a deep trench – and has fumed that the contractor hasn’t even had the decency to erect safety barriers.
Julia, 28, who is also studying physiotherapy at Plymouth University, said the mess left by workers ‘space for a coffin’ after they removed the slate pathway to the front door of her privately-owned home at Stone Barton yesterday.
She claims there had been no letter drop by homes builder Taylor Wimpey to warn locals about the incredibly intrusive and disruptive works.
All the pathways in her road are missing, and she is worried it could lead to a life-changing injury for some of her elderly neighbours.
She said: “I turned up home in the afternoon and they were just gone.
“Apparently they are now going to tarmac it as it’s easier to maintain.
“They have left huge trip hazard with uneven surface and gap 11 cm long in our only entrance to the house! No barriers, no warning signs.
“It is so inconsiderate. They didn’t send us a letter about it, they just did it.
“What if somebody on crutches or in a wheelchair has to leave their house?
“I work in a hospital with elderly patients with broken hips, many don’t make their way though it.
“It is so serious.”
Council contractors have returned today and are digging even more holes in the street.
The section of the pathway removed is maintained by Taylor Wimpey, and it is part of a series of scheduled works in the area.
She has tried ringing the relevant authorities to find out how long the works will last but has not yet been able to get through to anyone who can help.
A Taylor Wimpey spokesperson said: “We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers at our Cranbrook development while we carry out works to footpaths outside their homes.
“The health and safety of our customers is our priority and, following the concerns raised by residents, our construction manager has visited the working area and confirmed that it has been left safe ahead of the weekend.
“Our sub-contracted groundworker wrote to all affected customers to notify them of this work on 18th September 2018. The work is due to be completed on Monday 1st October.”
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/cranbrook-woman-28-fuming-after-2052534
East Devon Watch 